The toilet and sewer system has got to be down there somewhere.
Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
491–500 of 583 posts
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#492Earlier quoted context omitted.
Equally important is contraception and elective abortion. Being able to control the timing of raising a family allows a much higher degree of freedom and also ensures a safer and more healthy environment to raise a child. I think the most important prerequisite to being a parent is the desire to be a parent.
> ... safer and more healthy ... Not for that dead child. > I think the most important prerequisite to being a parent is the desire to be a parent. I don’t disagree with this. Thankfully adoption exists.
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Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#493Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still don't think LED (or Halogen) house bulbs are anywhere near as good as the classic incandescent bulb. Most LED bulbs give me a headache. Bad LED bulbs cause 'strobing' in my vision which is even worse.
I find Philips brand bulbs appear to have circuitry to "smooth out" the voltage and provide consistent light levels. I use my phone camera's slow motion mode to record my bulbs and see the flicker. Every brand I've tested via the above method, save for Philips, have suffered from flicker. Give Philips a try? May just be worth the premium. Hopefully a standard like the one mentioned in a comment below is put into plac…
I will, thanks!
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#494Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow. I've lived in the US all my life and I've never heard of a majority of anyone's social group not having a washing machine. Have others experienced this? If so, in what city?
I live New York. 5/7 years I’ve been here I haven’t had a wash. In my experience, an apartment with in-unit goes for 10% more than one without. My rent is 1850/mo and my local friendly laundromat does wash-and-fold for $0.90/lb. The math works out that an in-unit wash just isn’t worth it to me. Even if you’re lucky enough to afford rent in New York you probably can only afford one or two luxuries. For me I‘ve chosen…
How small are these apartments? I live in a 25 square meter one (according to wiki the definition of a tiny house is something smaller than 36 square meters) but there's still room for a washer and drier stacked on top of it. Around here the people that use building machines or laundromats are generally in the 15-20 square meter range or on razor tight budgets. Apart from that I know one guy without one and he's betting on not living long enough for it to be a wise investment.
Are the really that tiny in NY?
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#495Screws!
Or more accurately, the ability to mass produce them.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#496Since you've allowed modern to include the Industrial Revolution, I would submit the invention that started it: the flying shuttle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_shuttle (How did this cause the Industrial Revolution? It made weaving so much faster, that the spinning industry had to come up with machines to supply the weaving industry.)
Wow, I inherited a heavily used one of these from my grandmother 20 years ago, and never understood what it was. It was used in an odd way to hold dried flowers and plants, and I assumed it was some sort of Dutch tradition to do this. Now I know! Thanks for that. This makes my little memento that much more interesting.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
cat whisker detector
This one just requires a lump of germanium and a pin or small wire.
Traditionally, one would have used galena (natural lead II sulfide) crystals. I also recall most "boys'" radios - the type you'd find in Cubs/Scouts/etc. handbooks - using a razor blade as the contact whisker, probably because it was the simplest way to get a small contact point and stiffness at the same time with materials a kid would likely have to hand.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#498Pacifier
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#499Earlier quoted context omitted.
Important - yes, but would you consider it simple? AFAIU it relied on Maxwell's equations that I would not characterize as simple.
You don't need to know anything about Maxwell's equations to build a functioning radio. There are plenty of do it yourself books from the 1920s and 30s that explain in great detail how to do it including how to make rectifiers for battery charging, winding coils to get the right inductance, calculating the length of wire needed for the aerial and so on, together with the simple formulae that are needed.
There's reasonably good evidence to suggest that the first radio was invented before there was widespread acceptance of these so-called "waves" that Maxwell's ridiculous maths seemed to predict - before either Hertz or Lodge had managed to prove that they were anything other than artifacts of Maxwell's electromagnetic model. A certain David Hughes demonstrated transmission over a distance, but it was just written off as induction. And one could even presume that radio would have been inevitable, even without a preexisting theory of it, based entirely on barometers lighting up in thunderstorms; it only needed Volta's pile or a simple generator - some source of current on demand - and some experimentation with electricity before the phenomenon was noted and then deliberately employed.
Re: Ask HN: What’s the most important modern simple invention?
#500Mains sewerage.